On Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:23:13 +0100, Claus Kick wrote:
Klaus D. Witzel wrote:
Me thinks that the Smalltalk community is healthy and vibrant--it is "just" a community form one would not expect for Ruby or Python or Perl, etc. To get impression of my impression take a look at what *actually* happened during the *recent* months:
Why would one not expect this community for Ruby or Python or Perl? Could you please explain what you mean, for this puzzles me ...
There are (almost uncountable ;) many things which shape these communities; perhaps I focus on some of the obvious from a day-to-day perspective:
- starting+using Smalltalk is always starting+using the whole system, there are no parts, in an absolute sense, and there is no way to change that
- the Smalltalker has generally broader knowledge about his *whole* system, think of navigating "implementers of" as an example
- the Smalltalker has generally deeper knowledge about his *whole* system, think of navigating "senders of" as an example
This (and more ;) naturally orients the community along completely different dimensions, beginning with the learning curve, through things you can change+reuse, up to things you can achieve (like VMMaker+Simulator or Etoys or Scratch or Croquet or Moose or DabbleDB or Sophie), with a handful of people, in the Smalltalk community.
/Klaus